


SLD Case Report: The Arson Investigation

by tptplayer5701



Series: "Mind Games"-verse [41]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arson, Crime Fighting, Crimes & Criminals, Fire, Original Character-centric, Police Procedural, Post-Hawk Moth Defeat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:08:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29800653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tptplayer5701/pseuds/tptplayer5701
Summary: A “Mind Games”-verse SLD case:“Is the fire under control?” Ramus asked, his finger drifting down to the emergency alert button on his prosthetic.“Not if it spreads to the building next door – if it does that, half the block could go up!”“Your people know what they’re doing?”Binoche nodded curtly. “If it can be done, they’ll do it.”He let out a breath. “Tell your people to focus on the fire. Leave the Fire-Fly to us.”
Relationships: Roger Raincomprix & Lt. Luc Ramus, Roger Raincomprix & Sabrina Raincomprix
Series: "Mind Games"-verse [41]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1666807
Comments: 16
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In my research I didn’t find any indicator one way or the other on whether the Paris Fire Brigade has its own investigative service for arson or whether that’s a function of the Paris Police Prefecture. I’m going with the former just because that’s what I’m used to in an American context. It doesn’t change much one way or the other, though.

“We have a report of a potential super-crime in the 19th Arrondissement.”

Ramus’ fingers stopped drumming on the steering wheel instantly on hearing the call over the radio. They were near the edge of their patrol route, stopped at an intersection on the east edge of the city, almost to Les Arcades; his was certainly the closest unit. Wilson in the passenger seat flipped on the patrol car’s lights and siren while Ramus waited a beat, spun the wheel, and floored it through the intersection, turning north and skirting around the east side of Paris, accelerating rapidly. “Unit 1 en route. Is it still in progress?”

“Not anymore; the tracking program didn’t pick it up until the after-action report,” Élodie replied. She hesitated. “I’m sorry.”

Ramus slowed back down to the speed limit and exchanged a look with Wilson, who turned off the siren. “Not your fault. What’s the situation?”

“It was a structure fire at a single-family residence just off Rue de l’Égalité. There weren’t any fatalities – thank God – and the fire was contained and extinguished quickly. Unfortunately, the house itself was a total loss. The arson investigator on the scene made a comment about ‘unusual accelerant’ when she reported it in to headquarters,” Élodie answered. “And of course ‘unusual’ for them…”

“… means ‘usual’ for us,” Ramus finished, nodding.

Wilson hummed contemplatively, brows furrowed in thought. “‘19th Arrondissement’…” he mused. “Any chance that it’s a hate crime?”

Ramus stifled a curse. “A hate crime on _top_ of a super crime is just what we need,” he muttered.

“At the moment there isn’t enough information to make that call.” Élodie fell silent, the sound of typing in the background. At last she added, “The report doesn’t say anything more, and I can’t find any specific incidents in this neighborhood – or at least not recently.”

“Good work,” Ramus told her. “We’ll check it out. Patch me through to the lab.”

Wilson raised an eyebrow at Ramus. “We’re investigating normal fires, too?”

He shrugged. “We investigate what they tell us to investigate. Anything unusual could turn out to be another superhuman. And there have been a few supers who could control fire.”

“We locked up the last one, and this doesn’t exactly sound like Tyran-X’s style,” Wilson pointed out.

“Most likely it’s a false alarm,” Ramus allowed. “Still, it’s better to make that call for ourselves.”

Wilson hummed. “I suppose you never know: maybe this is some new super-villain that farts fire!”

The car radio crackled again. “Vernant. I understand you have something for me on this case?”

“Not at the moment, Theo,” Ramus replied as he turned onto Rue de Mouzaïa. “But are you available for a consult if we need it?”

“I will do what I can for you,” Vernant agreed. “However, I must warn you that fire investigation is hardly my area of expertise.”

“Understood.”

Vernant hummed contemplatively. “You have the drone with you, correct?”

“Checked it myself before we left,” supplied Wilson, nodding.

“Activate it when you arrive, and I will give the scene a cursory examination; I may spot something from the air that you miss from the ground.”

A couple minutes later, they pulled up to the correct street, the smoking, burned-out shell of a house visible in the distance with two Fire Brigade vehicles parked along the curb in front of the house. A local police cruiser had blocked off the intersection, the officer standing in front directed traffic down the main street while the firefighters continued to roll up their hoses to stow in the tanker truck. The other official vehicle at the scene, a bright red SUV, had the back hatch open. A young woman in a dark fire uniform leaned partway into the back, examining something Ramus couldn’t see. The officer waved Ramus past, and he parked on the opposite side of the road from the fire vehicles. Wilson opened the car’s trunk, and a quad drone roughly the size of a paving stone lifted out of its storage box, spun around once, and ascended to hover level with the tops of the trees. Ramus gave the drone a two-finger salute before the two officers crossed the street and approached the SUV.

“Are you the Fire Inspector?” Ramus asked the woman, looking over her shoulder at the wide array of equipment and sample boxes lining the back of the SUV. Set in front of her was a tray containing several shredded and burnt objects, including a charred doll, a blackened pan, and a piece which looked like a flat panel torn off a door. Against the side of the SUV on one side was a portable chest of drawers, flat on top with holes to hold test tubes, one of which she held in her hand.

“Who wants to know?” the woman replied, not turning around as she squeezed a drop of liquid into the test tube. She sealed it and shook, causing the contents to turn a pale green.

“Paris Police,” answered Ramus, flipping open his badge and holding it down within her line of sight. She turned to stare at them in surprise, her eyes stopping on Ramus’ forearm arm and taking in the silver prosthetic. He frowned – this was another reason he had asked both Pegasus and Vernant about a covering to camouflage it. This wasn’t the time someone had noticed, and it wouldn’t be the last. He cleared his throat, furrowing his brows at her, and gestured to the side with his prosthetic. “I’m Ramus, this is Wilson. I understand you suspect arson here?”

She flushed in embarrassment at having been caught, tearing her eyes off of Ramus’ arm and finally meeting his eye. “Um… Binoche – Fire Inspector. And yeah, I’m pretty sure this was arson.” Coughing awkwardly, she cocked her head suspiciously. “Arson is Fire Brigade’s jurisdiction, though,” she pointed out, looking more closely at their uniforms. “So why are a couple of police officers interested in my fire?”

“Oh, you know how it is,” Wilson told her, waving a hand dismissively. “We go where the bosses tell us.”

“Okay…”

Ramus sighed. “We’re part of a department that investigates crimes that the regular police… aren’t equipped to handle. And on the radio you said that there was something unusual about this particular fire,” he explained. “That’s why we’re here. But we’re not the experts on arson; you are. Could you describe what makes this particular fire stand out from any others?”

Binoche shrugged and held up her test tube. “The accelerant used in the fire wasn’t one I’ve ever seen before – it’s an unusual mixture of gasoline with a few other ingredients I can’t identify in the field. I found some of the residue on the ground outside.”

“That doesn’t sound all that unusual,” Wilson noted, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, well, this sample came from a shingle that got blown off the roof and managed to escape the fire,” she replied, selecting a tile off of her tray. “How does the accelerant get on the building’s roof?”

Ramus narrowed his eyes and leaned in closer, examining the tile carefully. The edges appeared a darker black than the rest, as though the outsides had been singed. “I suppose this tile couldn’t have been on the ground before the fire?”

Binoche shook her head and turned the tile over. “Not a chance. The adhesive on the back of the tile is still tacky, and the streaks across the top show that the liquid accelerant was running down it rather than pooling on it.”

Ramus exchanged a look with Wilson and frowned. “So in other words, do you think they could have been airborne?”

“That’s one possible explanation,” Binoche agreed, nodding. “But at this point, this is the only piece of evidence I have that really works into that theory.” She furrowed her brows suspiciously. “The way you said that makes it sound like you have someone in mind.”

Ramus nodded hesitantly. “I… may,” he confirmed. “But I don’t want to influence your analysis. What else do you have?”

“Just the way that the fire spread.” She pushed away from the SUV and led them over to the building. Standing next to the single wall left standing, she pointed up at a pair of long black streaks running down the outside wall. “I found marks like these all over the place,” she reported, a grim look on her face. “I’m not really sure what to make of it.”

“You’re the Fire Investigator.”

She grimaced. “Probationary,” she admitted. “I… only received my certification last summer.”

Ramus frowned, leaning in to take a closer look. He ran a finger down the streak, rubbing his fingers together and sniffing the ash that clung to them. Fire investigation had never been his strong suit. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“I have,” Wilson announced darkly, a far-off look in his eyes. “When I was in Africa, some of our patrol routes went through thick vegetation. Sometimes the only way to clear it out was to bring in the flamethrowers.” He knelt down next to another burn streak along the base of the wall. “A military-grade flamethrower will leave behind this kind of mark.”

Binoche slapped her forehead. “I should’ve realized that myself,” she groaned.

“You see a lot of flamethrowers in Paris?” asked Wilson rhetorically.

“So an airborne flamethrower…” Ramus mused, stroking his chin.

“Possibly,” Binoche agreed. “But gravity could also account for the downward streaks.”

“I may be able to shed further light on this conundrum,” Vernant announced over the radio. Ramus’ phone beeped with an incoming image. “I was experimenting with different filters on the camera. Ask your Mlle. Binoche what she makes of this.”

Ramus opened the picture and cocked his head, frowning. “What do you see?” he wondered, holding it out to Binoche.

She pursed her lips in thought as she studied the aerial picture of the crime scene. “This looks like a splatter pattern,” she finally answered, pointing out the brilliantly-colored droplets spreading out in a conical shape from a single point in the center of the yard. Her finger stopped over a larger droplet near the point of the cone pattern. “This is where I found the residue.” Passing the phone back to Ramus, she set off across the yard, kneeling next to a small brown patch. “Whoever set this fire must have done it from right there. If I knew the model of flamethrower, I could possibly tell you the user’s height, based on dispersal.”

Wilson narrowed his eyes, striding over to a point on the sidewalk a few meters away. “Take a look at this,” he called, indicating a discolored patch.

Binoche crouched over it, flicked open a penknife, and carefully scraped a few flakes onto a sheet of paper. Extracting a bottle from her jacket pocket, she placed a drop of liquid onto the flakes, which turned pale green. “It could be a match.”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Lieutenant?” Wilson asked Ramus.

He nodded. “There _is_ an arsonist who uses flamethrowers…” he mused.

Binoche arched an eyebrow in an invitation to continue.

“Between that and the accelerant spread on the roof and the dispersal pattern, it’s almost certainly that ‘Fire-Fly’ character,” Ramus told her.

“‘Fire-Fly’?”

Wilson shrugged. “We don’t come up with the names.”

“The Heroes of Paris reported an encounter with someone matching our – admittedly paltry – description,” Ramus explained. “A woman with an unusual preoccupation with fire who uses flamethrowers and a jetpack to set fires.”

“I wasn’t the investigator for that one, but I remember reading the investigation report…” Binoche cocked her head. “Didn’t she attack one of the Heroes of Paris?”

Ramus nodded. “She fought Ryoku but escaped. According to the Heroes’ report, Fire-Fly is obsessed with her handiwork and sees fire as being an absolute good. When Ryoku intervened to put out the fire, Fire-Fly tried to stop her.”

“So what does that mean for us?” asked Binoche.

“Well, she stayed to watch that fire burn,” Wilson pointed out, raising an eyebrow.

Binoche frowned. “You think she was here while they were putting out this one?”

“Most likely,” Ramus answered, nodding. “Watching the people who watch the fire is probably our best option for finding her.”

“So what do we do now?” Binoche wondered, looking from one officer to the other.

“This is your field more than ours, so we’ll have to trust you to keep your eyes out,” Ramus told her. “Whoever this is, this isn’t their first arson, so check other unsolved arsons to see if there’s a pattern. Our people will do the same.”

Binoche nodded. “Once I identify the trace elements in the accelerant, I can cross-reference that with our fire reports.”

“Good.” Ramus withdrew a card from his breast pocket. “In the meantime, call me directly the next time you have a suspicious fire – before it’s out, if possible.”


	2. Chapter 2

_Ring!_

Ramus cracked his eyes open blearily, turning to stare at the alarm clock next to his bed. He had to blink several times before the numbers would make sense. Two in the morning. Only an hour of sleep. The cell phone rang again, and he fumbled to pick it up. The number wasn’t one he recognized, and it wasn’t saved in his phone. Suspicious, he frowned but answered anyways. “Ramus.”

“Lieutenant…” The voice on the other end was one he vaguely recognized, though he couldn’t quite place it.

He cleared his throat. “Who is this?”

“Oh! Sorry, this is Emmanuelle Binoche, Fire Inspector,” the voice answered, chuckling in embarrassment. “Um… I just got the call. There’s another fire.”

Instantly all traces of exhaustion vanished. “Is it still burning?”

“They’re still fighting it as we speak. The captain tells me they might need to call in another station.”

“Crowd?”

“Only about a dozen people; from what I can tell, most are residents of the apartment building. More are arriving.”

“Police presence?”

“One car already responded.” She hesitated. “Should I have the captain request more, if there might be an arsonist in the crowd?”

Ramus shot upright in bed and threw back the covers. “No. Send me the location; I’ll be there in five.” No sooner had the call ended than he hit another button.

Bloch answered on the first ring. “Records Department.”

“This is Ramus,” he responded, massaging his temples and slapping his cheeks to force himself alert as a new message arrived. “We have a possible super-crime at this address.” He glanced down at map and rattled off the intersection. “Fire – possibly arson, possibly Fire-Fly. Who is on the night shift?”

“Girardot and Mansart. Should I send them?”

He shook his head. “No; seeing more police uniforms could alert her and we’d miss our chance. We don’t want to spook her if she’s still there watching the fire. Tell them to set up a block from the scene for backup. Then call the others – de Gouges, Luron, Wilson… whoever’s on-call tonight. Plainclothes, no uniforms. I’ll meet them there.”

“You’ve got it, Lieutenant.”

Ramus let out a breath and pushed himself out of the bed. The first order of business was to make sure he was going to be alert. Stumbling into the kitchen of his small apartment, Ramus hit the button on his coffee maker to fill his commuter mug before returning to the bedroom for a pair of pants and sweatshirt. Even after months of practice, he still fumbled with his shoes, trying to Velcro them one-handed. He grabbed his badge, radio, phone, keys, and a hat, along with a heavy coat against the chill. By the time he passed through the kitchen on his way out the door, his coffeemaker had finished brewing. He took his first sip of the strong coffee as he stepped outside, the hot drink and cold wind combining to clear out the cobwebs left behind from his interrupted sleep.

Less than five minutes later, he was slowing down to park half a block from the fire, the way forward blocked by a pair of fire trucks. Flames billowed out of an apartment building, lighting up the sky. Despite the chill December air, Ramus could feel sweat starting to bead on his forehead as he stepped out of the car, the heat intensifying the closer he approached the scene. Fire hoses crisscrossed the street from the fire hydrant, and teams of firefighters had spread out along the sidewalk, raining water on the roofs of nearby buildings. A figure in a red fire coat and hat caught his attention and waved him over. “What seems to be the situation?” Ramus asked her, his eyes drifting between the fire, the crowd, and Binoche.

“Fire appears to have started around 1:15,” she reported briskly. “The first call came in at 1:27; I got the call at 1:45. Witnesses had reported seeing lights in the air before the fire started, so I called you.” She paused, frowning. “So what do we do now?”

“Is the fire under control?” Ramus asked, pushing his sleeve up and finding the emergency alert button on his prosthetic.

“Not if it spreads to the building next door,” she replied, pointing up at the still-lit embers drifting away from the fire, caught by the light breeze. “If it does that, half the block could be affected.”

He nodded contemplatively, hesitating with his finger over the button. If he called in reinforcements _now_ , the Fire-Fly could make things messy; if he waited, the fire could get messier. “I assume your people know what they’re doing?”

She nodded firmly, a serious look in her eyes. “If it _can_ be done, they’ll do it.”

He let out a breath, brushing his sleeve back down to cover the prosthetic. “A few more of my people will be here soon enough,” he informed her, turning away from the fire and toward the growing crowd. “Tell your people to focus on getting the fire under control. Leave the Fire-Fly to us – assuming that’s who it is.”

“I will – and good luck.” Binoche walked across to the fire truck and tapped the fire captain on the shoulder, gesturing toward the crowd.

Ramus took a swig of his coffee and strolled along the sidewalk, examining the faces of those who had gathered to watch the fire. Off to one side were a small group wrapped in blankets – most likely a family displaced by the fire. The man had his hand on a boy’s shoulder, a look of shock in his eyes. The boy held a toy dog by the arm, wiping his eyes blearily. Another family huddled together, the woman clutching a photo album in both hands, one of the man’s arms around her shoulders while he held a toddler against his chest with the other. His stomach clenching, Ramus catalogued the faces for later and moved on.

Another man further back in the crowd held a camera up over the heads of the people surrounding him, recording the conflagration. Ramus frowned. Technically that wasn’t illegal… His radio crackling stirred him out of his reverie.

“What’s going on, Lt?” It was Ray.

“What’s your status?” Ramus asked by way of reply.

“Awake, though not too happy about it,” Ray answered wryly. “Just pulled up. North end of the block. Wilson’s behind me.”

“Split up and mingle with the crowd,” Ramus instructed them. “We’re looking for anyone acting suspicious. Anyone who seems too interested in the fire.”

“Copy that.”

By then Ramus had reached the far end of the crowd. A woman stood off to the side, staring at the fire, seemingly transfixed by the flames. His eyes narrowed suspiciously as he approached her. She pursed her lips, looked down at the phone in her hand, and frowned. Ramus stopped right next to her. “Hell of a thing, isn’t it?”

The woman hummed and turned to examine him, a calculating look in her eye. “I saw you talking to one of the firefighters, didn’t I?” she asked, holding her phone out. “Care to give a statement for _Soir_?”

Ramus raised an eyebrow dubiously. “Journalist? Already?”

She shrugged and started tapping away on her phone. “The public wants a story.”

“I suppose they do,” he acknowledged. “But the only statement I’ve got at the moment is ‘no comment.’” With a shrug he stepped past her, further into the crowd. Most of the faces he could see wore expressions of shock, though a few looked more curious than anything else. And yet, his instincts told him that none of them were the culprit. To his left, the fire was slowly diminishing as the firefighters poured more and more water onto it. He pulled his sweatshirt closer as the heat died down.

“I think I’ve got something, Boss,” Ray reported a few minutes later. “Woman near the middle of the crowd, front and center, directly in front of the building.”

Ramus craned his neck to look over the crowd, finally picking Ray out by his dark complexion. “Wilson, what’s your position?”

“North side, near the back of the crowd.”

“Ray, give us a few minutes before you approach,” Ramus ordered, pushing his way through the crowd, his prosthetic flush against his side and hidden inside his sleeve. “Wilson, you and I flank.”

Both officers acknowledged, and Ramus sidestepped around a couple holding hands near the front of the crowd. Ray was only about five meters away, standing next to a woman with short red hair and a long coat. Only two people separated him from them. He could see Wilson on the opposite side, a little further away. “Girardot, you and Mansart move in a little closer in case we need you.”

A hand waved above the crowd. “We’re in position,” Girardot reported.

Ray met Ramus’ eye, and Ramus nodded to him. “Have you ever seen something like this?” Ray asked, carefully looking at the fire instead of focusing on the suspect.

“The fire is positively mesmerizing,” the woman whispered, the flames dancing in her eyes. “Nothing in the world is more cleansing, more sanitizing, than purification by immolation.”

“Um… I _suppose_ that could be the case,” Ray agreed, a dubious edge to his voice, raising an eyebrow. “Madame…”

“Fire…” the woman murmured, enraptured.

“Fire… _Fly_?” Ray asked, his hand drifting down to the pistol on his belt. “Do you have some identification?”

The woman started, staring at Ray in surprise. Her eyes narrowed suspiciously and suddenly shot wide open. “No!” she screamed, backing away from him in a panic, shoving a man to the ground, backing away, directly toward Girardot and Mansart. Ramus surged forward, pushing past the young couple separating him from the suspect. Wilson likewise moved in as Ray lunged for the woman, grabbing a handful of her coat. She shrugged her arms out of the coat, revealing a harness across her chest securing something to her back. The crowd shrank away, running for cover, separating Girardot and Mansart from the others. Fire-Fly activated her jetpack and launched into the air, spreading her wing suit to catch the breeze.

“Don’t let her escape!” Ramus shouted, raising his prosthetic and sighting down it. Quickly he shifted its function away from the energy cannon. Ray and Wilson both had their sidearms out and pointed at Fire-Fly. Taking careful aim, Ramus fired. The grappling wire spooled out and twisted around Fire-Fly’s ankle, pulling taut. She looked down in confusion on feeling resistance, and he tugged, his feet starting to pull off the ground as she strained against him. Fire-Fly pulled a flamethrower nozzle from its holster along her leg and aimed it at the grappling wire. Ramus grimaced: if she could break the wire, then they would lose her for sure, and this might be their best chance to arrest her. Two pairs of arms grabbed Ramus, pulling him down and throwing off her aim. Instead of hitting the wire, the flaming liquid sprinkled all around her, several droplets landing on Mansart’s sleeve. He screamed in pain as Girardot tackled him to the ground, smothering the fire with her coat. Civilians fled in all directions.

Ramus activated the winch on his grappling wire, steadily reeling in Fire-Fly. She strained and tugged against the wire pulling her back down to the ground, but could not break it. By now she was no more than a handful of meters off the ground, and Ramus’ arm swung in all directions, threatening to dislocate his shoulder as she tried desperately to escape. Finally her jetpack cut out and she dropped to the street. Ray and Wilson stepped closer, pistols aimed at her face.

Fire-Fly’s eyes flashed with anger as she rose to one knee. Faster than any of the officers could react, her flamethrower spouted gouts of flame. “You will never take me!” she shrieked. “I will cleanse this wretched city! Feel the fires of perdition!”

Ramus gave the wire another tug, and her aim went wild. Instead of spewing over the two officers in front of her, flames shot across the street toward the small group of bystanders still watching the fire. A man was caught in the crossfire, his hair and face burned, and screamed falling to the ground. Another splash landed on top of a hose, which melted and burst, sending a spray of water over the street.

All three officers fired.


	3. Chapter 3

Ramus took a deep breath and pushed open the door to the SLD office. It had been two days since the incident. Fire-Fly – real name Renee Fournier – had spent six hours in surgery to repair the damage from the multiple energy blasts she had received in the fire fight. And that didn’t even include the traumatic amputation of her right arm at the shoulder. At the moment she was in protective custody at the hospital until she recovered enough to be sent to prison. Ramus frowned: for all of that, Fire-Fly had gotten off lucky. Mansart had received second-degree burns on his arm. The civilian she had burned had suffered worse – he had spent even longer in surgery and was looking at a much longer recovery period, including reconstructive plastic surgery to repair the damage to his burnt face.

Élodie looked up at him in surprise as he entered the room. “Lieutenant! You’re back! How are you?”

He shrugged. “I couldn’t exactly sit at home forever,” he told her.

She gave him a quick hug and nodded sympathetically. “It wasn’t your fault. You did everything you could.”

He frowned. “Doesn’t exactly feel that way.”

She sighed. “If you ever need to talk…”

“You’ll be the first one I call,” he promised.

“The Prefect left instructions for you to report to him the moment you return to duty,” she informed him, consulting her computer quickly. “His schedule is free at the moment; I’ll send him a message to expect you.”

Ramus nodded in resignation. “I figured he would. Can you let Vernant know that I’ll be down later so he can replace the grappling hook winch?”

“Not a problem,” she assured him, picking up the phone.

With a sigh, Ramus backed out of the office, retraced his steps through the Records Office, past the woman at the counter, and strode across the City Hall atrium toward the large marble staircase. He glanced up in surprise on seeing Gouger in front of him. “Sergeant,” he greeted her with a formal nod.

Gouger cocked her head and stared at him. “Everything okay, sir?”

He pursed his lips. “Everyone asks me that…” he muttered under his breath. Louder he told her, “It’s fine.”

She nodded in acceptance. “Join me for a drink after shift today?”

He hummed. “Why not?” he agreed, shrugging. He turned away from her, toward the stairs. “I’ll see you then.”

She put a hand on his shoulder as he passed, but withdrew it when he paused. “What the paper said…” she began hesitantly. “They’re wrong.”

He made a face. “At least _we_ know that…” Ramus felt her eyes following him as he ascended the stairs, passing two officers as he went – members of Mayor Bourgeois’ security detail. That was technically his assignment right now: officially the officers of the SLD were part of the Mayor’s security. But instead of following the Bourgeois family around all day (he did not envy whoever was stuck with Mme Bourgeois), he and his team spent their days patrolling the city for super-criminal threats like the Fire-Fly. And sometimes those super-criminals fought back.

Prefect Raincomprix’s office was at the far end of the hallway, set back in an alcove. As he opened the reception room’s door, Jeanne, the Prefect’s secretary, waved him past her and into the office beyond. Steeling himself, Ramus stepped inside and carefully closed the door. He stood ramrod straight and waited to be acknowledged.

Prefect Raincomprix’s desk faced the front door with two wooden chairs for visitors and a small number of personal effects sitting alongside his computer. To one side of the computer was a picture frame showing four people – Raincomprix’s family, along with a boy Ramus didn’t recognize. On the far side of the desk, Raincomprix had given pride of place to a lighter with a dent in it that a few of the officers had given him when he was first promoted to Lieutenant; it had saved his life a couple months later when he’d been shot by a suspect. Raincomprix looked up the moment Ramus entered and nodded for him to sit. “Come in, Luc!” he greeted him, shaking his hand.

“You wanted to see me, sir?” Ramus perched on the edge of his chair.

Raincomprix nodded. “A follow-up to the incident the other night.” He grimaced. “I’m sure this is exactly what you want to be doing right now, but…” He shrugged. “Thanks for coming promptly.”

“Of course, sir.”

Raincomprix gave him a severe look. “After fifteen years, you don’t have to stand on ceremony when we’re alone in my office, Luc.”

Ramus let out a breath. “Okay. So… what can I do for you, boss?”

“It’s more like what _I_ can do for _you_.” Raincomprix leaned forward and laid his hands on the desk. “After any incident like this – especially one where you shot a suspect – you need to take at least some time to process everything that happened. So… how are you feeling about it?”

Ramus eyed him suspiciously. “This about what that reporter said?”

Raincomprix raised an eyebrow. “I would’ve thought you knew me better than that,” he chastised him. “No, this is not about that article – _I_ ’ll handle the Mayor on that. This is about _you_.”

Ramus shrugged. “I mean, it was pretty hairy there for a couple minutes, but we all lived. I’m fine now.”

“Spoken like a true police man,” Raincomprix observed wryly. “Now pretend you’re _not_ a macho-man Robocop trained to lock your feelings away and answer the question again – honestly.”

“I’m fine.”

Raincomprix frowned. “I know you don’t _like_ doing this kind of thing – hell, _I_ don’t particularly enjoy it either. But it’s important for you to face your feelings. I can’t put you back in the field if I don’t know 100% that you have your head together. The last thing I need is an officer going off the rails – or hesitating and getting someone killed.” Ramus’ stomach clenched. “Now you are going to talk to _someone_. And if you insist on giving me the runaround, I will _order_ you to talk to a therapist before you can return to duty.”

Ramus scoffed. “A therapist? What therapist can I actually talk to about something like this? The perps we deal with aren’t exactly fit for public consumption, even _if_ that reporter got a picture of us ‘Fire-Fly-Fishing’ to go with that stupid article on that stupid blog. Our department technically doesn’t exist. Hell, most of the Mayor’s staff doesn’t even know about us! And I’m supposed to talk to some therapist about the fact that I blew the arm off of a woman who was flying around with a flamethrower?”

Raincomprix’s lip curled up in amusement and his eyes drifted to the picture on his desk. “Don’t worry,” he assured him. “If you need to talk to a therapist, I already have one our people can talk to.”

“Wouldn’t he be a security risk?”

“Actually, _her_ ‘security clearance’ is higher than _either_ of ours, so no!” Raincomprix smiled fondly. “And you wouldn’t be able to hide anything you’re feeling from her, either.” He fixed his eyes on Ramus. “You _are_ going to talk to someone about this before you go back out in the field. Now you can answer the question for me, or you can answer it for her.”

Ramus narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “I guess you thought of everything,” he finally observed. He sighed. “It sucks,” he admitted, staring at the lighter on Raincomprix’s desk. “Not shooting Fournier – she had it coming. But we hesitated. We could have stopped her sooner, before she could hurt anyone else, but we didn’t. We didn’t act fast enough, and people got hurt. And it’s bad enough that one of my team was injured in the line of duty; we all know this is a dangerous job. But my hesitation allowed a civilian to get hurt, also.”

Raincomprix nodded solemnly. “It’s not an easy thing to live with,” he agreed. “We try like hell, but sometimes they act faster than we can. Walk me through the decisions.”

Ramus closed his eyes, drifting back to the moment his phone rang. “I thought this was our best chance to catch her,” he finally began. “All the evidence pointed to the Fire-Fly, and I thought we could bring her in with a minimum of trouble, as long as she didn’t realize we were looking for her. That’s why I wanted my team there in plainclothes and told Girardot to hold back.”

“Makes sense so far…”

His hand drifted down to his prosthetic. “I almost hit the button when I arrive,” he admitted, “but I hesitated. Seeing Ryoku or Ladybug – or any of the heroes, for that matter – could have spooked her. And if that happened things could have gotten worse. I figured that we could handle it ourselves.”

“This didn’t quite meet our threshold for calling in reinforcements yet,” agreed Raincomprix, nodding pensively.

Ramus frowned. “Do you think I should have done it anyways, looking at the results?”

Raincomprix let out a breath. “It would be far too easy to make a snap judgment after the fact and say you were wrong – hell, _I_ could have done the same thing at least _twice_ last summer!” He grimaced, and Ramus’ hand drifted up to the spot where his prosthetic merged with flesh. “But no, I don’t think you were in the wrong, based on the information you had at hand – I’m not certainly going to take disciplinary action. Based on your reports, we would have had an entirely different outcome if you’d only had a couple of better breaks. But I do think we need to reconsider our criteria for calling in the Heroes of Paris, particularly when civilians are at risk.”

Ramus nodded, the knot in his throat easing fractionally.

“What have you been doing to cope?”

He shrugged. “No more beer than usual, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“That’s good, but it’s not the only thing I’m asking about.”

“Well, I’m going to see Theo after we’re finished here,” Ramus told him. “The winch burned out trying to reel in Fournier and it needs to be replaced. I’ll probably visit the shooting range while I’m down there and melt through a few dozen targets.”

Raincomprix hummed. “It does sound like you have a handle on this,” he acknowledged. “With how busy I’ve been lately, it’s been a while since I took the time for target practice; perhaps I ought to join you – after I meet with the Mayor, that is… For now I’m going to clear you for light duty until Christmas; normal duty starting after the first of the year. But if you think that seeing the counselor would help, I will arrange it.”

Ramus shook his head. “No, I think I’m okay.”

“Well, from the reports, your team is handling itself admirably in the field,” Raincomprix noted approvingly. “But what has been your observation? Are there any other resources you might need in the field?”

Ramus frowned, stroking his chin in thought. “We have been handling our cases just fine so far,” he admitted, “but I think this particular case highlighted one thing we are lacking: specialists.”

“What do you mean?”

“We don’t really have the expertise to investigate arson,” he explained. “Wilson has a little experience from the military, as does Theo, but not on the same level as the fire investigator we were working with. We could use some specialists to help with specific aspects of the investigations.”

“You want to recruit this fire investigator? Binoche?”

Ramus nodded. “If not her, then someone,” he confirmed. “And even if we don’t recruit them away from the Fire Inspectorate to join our department officially, it would be good to vet some of these specialists who are part of other groups – fire inspector, crime lab, medical examiner, and so on – and be able to bring them in when we need them. That was if we have another arsonist on our hands, we can work with ‘our’ fire investigator that we trust, rather than having to either muddle through it on our own or work with someone we don’t know and trust.”

Raincomprix hummed pensively. “I will take that under advisement,” he finally agreed, nodding. “It certainly has merit.”

“Thanks.”

Raincomprix glanced down at his watch and stood up. “You know, I actually have an hour before I meet with the Mayor. Shall we get in some target practice in the meantime?”

“Of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tomorrow look for the first chapter of a new anthology, “A Very Miraculous Christmas.” In March. Because we’re now 2 1/2 to 3 months off from the actual calendar.


End file.
